SPQR: What’s The State Good For?

The state is there to organize everything important pertaining to society. Let’s use the oldest, largest, most detailed example we have: Rome.

Rome controlled a greater percentage of the world population than any state, ever. Rome was also, arguably, the most continually constitutionally evolving state, ever. We are using Rome’s legal, institutional, and civilizational, model, to this day.

In 800 CE, the Franks proclaimed Rome “Renovated”. Several Roman public structures had been not just renovated, but massively extended, to wit, mandatory public education. Ever since, we have been renovating Rome, keeping in mind, and extending, the public-private mix which characterized Roman society. Thus if we ask what the state is for, we have to interrogate our origins, Rome.

The Roman state under the Republic, ordered the army to build public infrastructure. For example, in France, a major canal was built under Consul Marius in the Second Century BEFORE the present era (2C BCE). Then a major via was built, through south France and the Alpae Maritimae. Roman via built by the legions were one meter thick, and some are used to this day. Then Caesar drained the swamps, to fight malaria. Later, under Trajan, poor yet meritorious children had their entire education paid by the state (“alimenti“).

Segovia Aqueduct’s Construction By Ordered By Government Under Emperor Domitian (81 CE)

Segovia is a city in Spain. Segovia’s aqueduct, like all Roman public works, was ordered by government.

Need I say more? (I have broached this subject many times in the past, more recently to answer Ian Miller, “A Role For Government“.)

In Francia, France, the successor state of Rome, by the Eight Century, public education was mandatory and free. All over. A thoroughly modern police was built by 1300 CE. It allowed to arrest all Templar Monks simultaneously, all over.

Then the state organized free hospitals, all over. Leprosy disappeared.

Many Americans claim the state should be on

American anti-state propagandists are generally paid by plutocrats for saying things so stupid that they are then ready to vote for G. W. Bush, Ted Cruz, Goldman Sachs, and hedge fund managers. That has worked well, because plutocracy has fed the American people well. But now some inkling of understanding is slowly creeping in…

In France, a couple of hospitals with special services use now last resort antibiotics (against resistant TB, for example: patients come from Russia). But they are not available anywhere else.

So what is the state?

The state American plutocrats and survivalists claim, should be only about only about force:

The force of defending territory

The force of imposing the Fiat Currency

Those who have a bit more smarts add to this the force of imposing justice. This was actually the role of Consuls, Proconsuls and their subordinates in Rome.

There is also a metastate, in democracy, which is how We The People select the government. This, in democracy, has to be public. Not so in plutocracy, and Obama spent much of his presidency plotting with plutocrats, who, in exchange, gave him money. (OK, not to him personally, American corruption, to claim it’s not corruption, erects apparent, only apparent, firewalls…)

Is the state, reduced to this minimum, viable? No. Think about it. 20,000 years ago, the state was the tribe, with its total democracy. 10,000 years ago, the first city-states appeared. five centuries ago, most the economy of the state was agricultural. The states or cities which marked civilization the most, though were less agricultural. examples are Athens, Rome (when it became urbi and orbi), Venice, Florence, etc. And also Paris, when it was by far europe’s largest city of 200,000, around 1200 CE.

The Roman State started as a monarchy. 15 centuries later, it was officially “renovated” by the Franks. Meanwhile, much happened, including the Huns. In 390 CE marauding Gauls invaded and occupied Rome (they were bought out, and once out of Rome, consecutive to this payment, exterminated by (dictator) Camille’s army).

This showed clearly that Rome needed giant fortifications, and fast communications. In 312 BCE, the Via Appia, the first serious Roman road was built, straight down south, by the army. It’s still in use today.

The SPQR, Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, the Senate And Roman People were in an evolving relationship. The Senate lasted more than 13 centuries. The People’s rule, though, a much shorter time. We The People lost its fight to plutocracy (… to this day!). It lost it, after a fight which lasted more than a century (between the Gracchi’s tragic lives, until the assassination of Caesar, who whatever his flaws, was, like the Gracchi, or the two presidents Roosevelt, a top aristocrat fighting for the People).

When the fascist empire got established by Augustus, attention was paid to the cultural dimension. That was financed by the state, all over the empire. Extremely expensive, extremely well made amphitheaters and theaters were built all over.

Roman Amphitheater, Aspendos, Present-Day Turkey

Most Roman monuments did not survive to this day, precisely because they were of such high quality. Long lasting, they were used as building material sources later (especially by the resentful Christians). Indeed, the quality of construction was amazing: the Pantheon in Rome, model of all domed buildings ever since, is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.

On February 21, 1916, the German fascists launched a surprise attack on the little defended city of Verdun. One million shells, many from 420 mm guns, in a few hours, shattered the French lines. However, the French counter-attacked, and the surprise failed. The French army soon brought 3,000 trucks of ammunitions and supplies a day.

The battle lasted 300 days. More than 700,000 French and German soldiers died in combat there.

So yes, the state is there for defense. But defense requires public works. And private work ordered by the state: France had only a few hundreds trucks in 1914, but soon the army ordered thousands (and thousands of planes, tanks, etc.). In the USA, under Roosevelt, the Canadian Galbraith reorganized all US industry. Later, all of the educational system was reorganized by the GI Bill.

The truth is simple:

Greed is just one human motivation dwarfed by others, which are much more fundamental: love, curiosity, sharing, teaching, communicating, caring for self & others, good life, appreciating the world…

Let’s mention in passing that this implies the futility of founding the state around the so-called “free market” and its “invisible hand” (all what’s invisible is the hand of Pluto). The state is about more important motivations (contemplate the Inca empire).

Greed unfettered, unclipped, unbowed, morphs into plutocracy, power so corrupt that Pluto’s satanic ways have to be called in to cling to it.

So the effects of greed are terrible. The entire idea of greed is to dominate, subjugate, terrify, subdue, and domesticate others. It’s intrinsically about hurt. Rome showed a more important and noble, literally and figuratively, way: public service. Public service as a mandatory passage for those who counted the most.

The state is there to enable civilization, the ability to live in cities. The state thus replaces the tribe, which was an extended family. Thus the state has to be like a sort of extended family. That means it has to be a democracy. The state is not just about killing people, and enforcing law. It’s also about public education, public hospitals… And defending against the enemy of democracy, which is what’s destroying it now, plutocracy.

35 Responses to “SPQR: What’s The State Good For?”

Hello Patrice. Not so sure greed is dwarfed by the others you mention, at least not the effects of it. The problem with greed is its effects hurt so many others. My next post has an additional reason for the state.

Greed unfettered, unclipped, unbowed, morphs into plutocracy, power so corrupt that Pluto’s satanic ways have to be called in to cling to it
.

So the effects of greed are terrible. The entire idea of greed is to dominate, subjugate, terrify, subdue, and domesticate others. It’s intrinsically about hurt. Rome showed a more important and noble, literally and figuratively, way: public service. Public service as a mandatory passage for those who counted.

What is that additional reason which I missed? (I have written other essays on the same subject, but did not review them…)

Not just this, but, because of compound interest, or compound power, the greater money, property or power grows faster, the bigger it is. This PLUTOCRATIC PHENOMENON has been the bane of civilization, ever since there are cities and they thrive. The main function of taxation is to prevent that PP (peepee, pipi). Republican Rome had an absolute cap on wealth, and that’s why the Republic lasted five centuries. Globalization removed the cap, disaster ensued. Same problem now.

Well said. Plutocracy is all about the destruction of democracy and the common good. Privatization is the plutocrats’ goal as a means to exploit the general population. Their propaganda is very effective on a poorly educated public. The Sanders campaign is under attack-even from the “left” as Krugman labels his platform as voodoo economics and lets his ties to the Clintons show- most comments by NYT’s readers show they caught on quite quickly.
US infrastructure is being ignored while billions or more goes untaxed into safe havens while employment suffers. How much will the “precariat” take?

Krugman is viewed as the brains of the left, whereas he is the brains of the Reagan right (he was as close an economic adviser of Reagan as possible). It’s a miracle!
Hopefully, Krugman’s disgusting attitude to Sanders, will wake up the real left to his treachery. But I don’t hold my hopes up. Many American leftists read and participate the CIA organized Daily Kos, which banned me as soon as I was for MEDICARE FOR ALL… It’s all about the confusion between reality and appearances… The precariat has no power, thus can take whatever, told me a US government representative.

Ah, the CIA organized Daily Kos! That’s why they went full batshit on me about “conspiracy” when I raised the question of exactly what it was that Obama’s mother and grandparents did for a living! It’s amazing how heavy handed they can be, like when Jack Ruby was sent in to silence Oswald. There’s a very deep seated belief in Langley about “managing information”. Not everything’s a conspiracy, but they do exist.

Obama’s grandparents were OSS in Lebanon during WWII (his mother may have been born there and not in Kansas) and segued into the CIA. His mother hopscotched all over the Far and Near East trouble spots, picking up a dozen languages. No Virginia, she was not just a “hippie”.

Since the CIA functions as Wall Street’s paramilitary, the plutocratic circle closes. I’m wondering now if the whole Kenyan birther thing was actually a CIA disinformation op to keep people distracted from asking questions like the above.

Yes, that’s an excellent point: the “birther” thing sounded completely cooked out of thin air, the birth certification of Obama being unambiguous. (Plus, even if he had been born in Kenya, he was “AMERICAN BORN” (see Ted Cruz, or John McCain, born in foreign countries, but still “American Born”…. the common law is from early 1700s…)

Create a juicy debate about nothing, nothing dangerous for the establishment, and focus on that. The early reign of Obama was full of these non-issues…

Well… Nothing to add, really. The Roman reference is, as always, very enlightening.

On a purely economic standpoint, liberal economics win by default; it achieves its purpose, whereas other brands never could. The problem is its purpose does not necessarily converge with the common good, a contrived form of wishful thinking.

So, to fulfill its (hitherto false) promise of enhancing the common good, liberal economy needs strongly enforced state regulation, intervention and, when needed, direction. Self-regulation has proven a hollow promise, again and again. Within the EU, the UK has consistently and successfully killed industrial policy; the word for this is “sabotage”.

State regulation has to be made simpler, clearer and fairer. To that extent, the proponents of the shrunken state have a (limited) point.
But that simpler, fairer and clearer regulation has to be enforced ruthlessly. Special provisions may be necessary; loopholes are never necessary and always conducive to predation.

So the state should not be made smaller, but leaner, cleverer and more muscular, with the caveat it MUST remain the province of “We the People”.

I increasingly feel that Brexit, instead of being the beginning of the end, may be the only way for Europe to move ahead. Brexit will just neutralize the English plutocracy, otherwise nothing will change with the present state of affairs.

This being said much of the work of the EC in Brussels has been beyond grotesque (and engaged in, precisely because they avoided the big questions). The SWISS model should be adopted. If the Swiss cantons can be quasi-independent, so should the nations of Europe… One should create a CE: CONFOEDERATIO EUROPEAE.

“So the state should not be made smaller, but leaner, cleverer and more muscular, with the caveat it MUST remain the province of “We the People”.”

Isn’t that the root (IMHO) of that Anglo, and US in particular, set of pathologies about “the State”, that enable Plutocracy so readily, and so naturally?
In that the “State” is not ‘we the people’, but a foreign entity (often literally, Saxons, Normans) arbitrating between people, and that the Nation doesn’t grow around/with the State (say, France), but the State rules/manages the Nations as a venture for the benefit of a relative few?

I mean, from the UK you’ve got the “free men on the land”, in the USA, you’ve got the “sovereign citizens”, as fringe expressions of that issue (no equivalent elsewhere, not even the autonomists or self-run communes), but there are more mainstream strains as well (the litany of anti-gvt militias & privately-funded union-busting armed groups in the USA, or the occasional outbursts like the recent Bundy ranch/Malheur idiocy, when the State is perceived as “over-reaching”, that is departs from its enforcer & enabler role, kill the injuns, and give lands away type). And the really overt, mainstream cultural myths (the 50’s onward re-imagining of the conquest of the West, after a long hiatus from the period dime novels), that are the foundations of all that toxic anti-State, anti-Gvt, libertarian brew.
I may be a bit confuse here.

I don’t think so. The root of the problem is greed to the point of GENOCIDAL PHILOSOPHY. The state, in the USA is actually the main employer. (But there are 2/3 the density of civil servants of France; French civil servants suck France dry, let alone devastated her industry: see Balladur’s privatization “noyaux durs” staffed with ENA geniuses…

Well, you are right when talking about the general phenomenon of plutocracy, but in this current iteration, plutocracy cannot be separated from Anglo-Saxonia – as the dog always comes back to its own vomit, I always come back to my own pet peeves : the Anglo world was, from its inception a plutocratic project, muhc more than a Nation in the strictest sene, the “Colonial” (as in North American) outshoot even more so; greed to the point of genocidal philosophy may be the root of all (plutocratic) evil… but, what else is at the very core of the US enterprise? People didn’t go there for some BS about the New Atlantis or some other free-masonry crap. Hell, whenever some lone adventurer nut from the USA tried to take over some newly independent Central or South American 19th century country, happened a couple times, the first item on the “to do” list was to (re) introduce slavery and tentatively start wiping out the natives.

Plutocracy, in its current blossoming = the Anglo project successful and unrestrained, period, more specifically, the virulent strain that went so successful once it could incubate in its own large, preserved Petri dish.

Throw in the “outlier’s outlier” aspect, in regard to mentalities, insularity, religion(s), rejection of Europe (JP Immarigeon makes a debatable point about the USA being a leftover from the Ancien Regime; they, after all, much like the UK, though in a lesser fashion for the later, pretty much diverged from the post-Revolutionary France shared European History), and there is even an amusing similarity to the sunni muslim world, and Saudi Arabia; the fringe become the normative force.

And actually I still have to write that broadside against recent English philosophy. There was no revolution in 18C England… because it was more of a plutocracy than France. Paradoxically it’s the French living in England who launched the English democratic system (see Guillaume le Conquerant, the Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort, etc.)

Well, as long as he terrifies and subjugates Paul Krugman, Rubio, Cruz and Kasich, I am all for it! The exchange with Jeb Bush about Iraq and 9/11 was something no US politician had ever the courage, or capability, to do.

Historically, for decades, I have been anti-Trump. HOWEVER, what Trump used to do with banks now sounds as public (self) service. Finance has become unfathomable more evil since. Only SANDERS and Trump are threatening to make them pay taxes. HOWEVER, now we have Krugman telling us “Trickle Down Economics”, who he engineered with Reagan, is the only valid economics. Oh, Krugman does not say this directly, he is not that dumb… Instead he sings the praises of that crook of Clinton’s “realism”. Like in being paid 225,000 dollars for a 50 minutes talk to the crooks at Goldman Sachs… It’s OK, said Clinton, just market rate…

Trump’s idea of taxing “Chinese” imports 45% is not dumb, it is very smart (OK, it may bring a World War… just may… it’s better than the slow cooking by global plutocracy going on now…). Without doing drastic stuff, oblivion is guaranteed (said from California entering sixth year of drastic drought… in spite of greatest El Nino ever)

Interesting stuff.
Let me propose an idea (in one word!) how this is possible: ideology.
To quote vocabulary.com:
An ideology is a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual. Very often ideology refers to a set of political beliefs or a set of ideas that characterize a particular culture.Capitalism, communism, socialism, and Marxism are ideologies.

Most people would agree, that communism, socialism, and Marxism are ideologies, but capitalism?! Seriously?
For simplicity sake let’s take for example current US (republican) variety: small state, free market (but corporate friendly legislation), strong military. For tactical reasons – to woo christian fundamentalist and to divert hoi polloi from negative effects of increasing inequality, add some culture wars (pro-life, anti-gay, xenophobia, even some racism), sport popularity and constant international military interventions. As third layer of this structure add surveillance, war on drugs, war on terror and out-of-proportions prison population.

I think it’s obvious (or at least should be) that this is very arbitrary and ideological variety of capitalism. But why most people don’t see it as as such?
One answer is beacause of mainstream media (MSM). Other answers are welcome …

But what’s happening right now is that this carefuly built constructions is beginning to show cracks, being exposed from left and right, by Sanders and Trump.

Hello Darko Mulej and welcome (your comments should go straight through without dreaded “moderation”, from now on, except if there are lots of links, when WordPress itself puts the comment in moderation).

MSM is not just MSM, it’s PMSM, Plutocratic Main Stream Media: it’s owned by plutocrats. Not just the WSJ, but the NYT, etc… Many of the PMSM has me under surveillance (they block my comments, or delay them by several days). Much of the supposedly left Internet is completely fake, for example the Daily Kos, which has blocked me for life, and makes surveillance to make sure I cannot comment through another identity (!!!!!)

Thank you Patrice.
And what would be trusted media source? I would suggest articles from Robert Reich, Robert Kuttner and Jeffrey Sachs which I usually pick on Huff Post.

Btw, NYT is great reading for news junkies, because articles are professionally written, biased articles are easy to detect (or so I think), and commentary section is second to none. I am still searching for pattern, when comments are on or off, though …

Huff Post banned me years ago, so I tend to not go back there. For whatever reason, they still don’t post my comments (they may have published an innocuous one, years ago). Ariana is a Ayn Rand character come alive… So I feel at least (they come from the same part of the world, BTW…)
I view myself as trusted media. I go through the MSM, perfectly aware of their bias. I can tell in advance when the New York Times will ban one of my comments, or delay it days…

I like Robert Reich, bought his latest book, although he is still mild relative to what I was saying 8 years ago. I read a lot of science literature I am subscribed to (Science, Nature, New Scientist, etc.). The Economist, although full of defects from its basically pluto view, I read (in my bath)and subscribe to. At least, it does not censor me… That’s the curious, and very telling fact: the WSJ never censored me, either. The right does not censor me. Does that mean I was Trump all along without knowing it? Well, these days, trump sounds like a leftist, that’s how low we have got…

‘Brexit, instead of being the beginning of the end, may be the only way for Europe to move ahead.’

Chris Snuggs: See how they do without our THIRTY MILLION EUROS NET EVERY SINGLE DAY to finance their grotesquely plutocratic lifestyle. Sell the FOURTEEN HUNDRED MILLION ECB CENTRE in Frankfurt (The EU connived in Greek LIES to get Greece into the euro); maybe convert it to flats for Muslims and stick a minaret and wailing siren on top.

The EU is sclerotic, wasteful, corrupt, interfering, bullying, quasi-fascist and obsessed with “ever-closer union” and federalisation, for which NO CITIZEN ON THE ENTIRE CONTINENT HAS EVER VOTED. Germany thinks it already runs the show, but is led by an idiot and is effectively a one-party state. And why the UK should subsidize French farming is a mystery to me. The UK now IMPORTS 66% of its fish, where we were self-sufficient since the stone age. Power corrupts, and the EU has too much power. Germany got Juncker elected, a SELF-CONFESSED LIAR, for Christ’s sake, and Schulz is a slimy toad beyond belief. OUT, OUT ……

Why Prince Charles got millions from the EC for his farm, is not a mystery to me, though. The 30 million a day? The net UK deficit is 11 Billion Pounds… HOWEVER, England, overall makes certainly much more than that a day. MOREOVER, the English will have to keep on paying, as Norway and Switzerland do. Plus Great Britain will disintegrate. Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave, and probably also Wales (which makes the AIRBUS wings). This said, Brussels has been a shame, just like London as the center of world plutocracy is a shame. Some of the UKIPists roar against the EU PARLIAMENT, and that’s not tolerable to me. What don’t you like about Schulz? His French is excellent… The real tod is Boris Johnson, who decided he had nothing to lose by being pro-Brexit… I remember him saying for years, in excellent French how welcome the French were in London…

FFS, the UK is far from being the largest net contributor to the EU budget, BUT France IS the largest contributor to the UK’s rebate, for crying it out loud… As for the mystery, it rather is the brit obsession with France, symbolized here with the obsession with the farming subsidies to France (IIRC, France is ca. 20% of the EU agricultural output, yet receive about 15% of the total subsidies – the UK receive proportionally more, and, as pointed out above, a good part of that goes to wealthy/noble land owners, a way to buy some good will, possibly).
But, as Calais, a French self-inflicted (by agreeing to police the UK’s border on its behalf) law & order problem that actually doesn’t threaten the godons in any fashion, this is turned on its head to become some kind of hysterical issue.
your insularity is being raped, I get it. Get over it, or tug your island near the US shore, you’ll be way better over there.

Non upper class Brits, in particular Chris, could not stand the USA. Where I am (Silicon Valley) there are maybe ten times more French than Brits. British bobbies are not armed. Here, if you dig in your car, where your hands cannot be seen, the police immediately shoots you. How British is that?

But the other side of the coin is that London is the world’s plutocratic center. So this maybe for the best.

You just don’t get it. This is NOTHING TO DO WITH THE USA, which you are obsessed about. WE WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT, not in a federation dominated by idiotic, arrogant Germany and its vastly endebted, sclerotic, highly-taxed, overregulated and endemically high-unemployment France. I don’t care if we are not the biggest contributors. We pay THIRTY MILLION EUROS PER DAY NET to Brusssels to enable the obscene plutocracy of EU employees. We GAVE AWAY our fishing industry. Now we IMPORT 66% of our fish, where we were self-sufficient snce the stone age. Our frade with the EU is declining. The EU is in freefal economic decline thanks to idiot overregulation and the moronic euro, which ALL REPUTABLE ECONOMISTS SAID WOULD FAIL. The Brusselomafia DID NOT CARE if it failed, since the PLANNED it to fail to FORCE fiscal and thus political union. The EU is the ANTITHESIS of democracy and many of us LOATHE and DESPISE it.

A majority of the English would probably be ecstatic to see the Scottish ball and chain detach itself from us.

The UK economy is the 5th or 6th biggest in the world. We can certainly stand alone without the stupefyingly bureaucratic and interfering EU. We want to be INDEPENDENT, like Canada, Australia, Singapore, Russia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil etc etc. The EU has ABUSED our trust with its venality, corruption, arrogance, quasi-fascism and general incompetence.

I don’t do LIES. Juncker LIED about the euro. THEY ALL LIED ABOUT GREECE’S ENTRY INTO THE EURO. The economic ruination of Southern Europe is THEIR FAULT, but you will NEVER get any of the bastards to admit it, or apologize.

I absolutely detest the EU, and now Merkel has gone completely MAD. Germany is going the way of Sweden; all thanks to the unbelievable arrogance of the European political elite. You think England wants to be part of this total shambles?

Well, dear Chris, this is conflating everything. The Pound fell 2.4% against the dollar. Just today (it was down 11% before that). My solution is to go CE, like there is CH: Confeodoratio Europeae. I mean, this all shambles makes me approve of what David Cameron is now saying, it’s that bad. I don’t see why the SWISS model, cantons each with their own constitution, could not be duplicated. All the countries you mention are OK as implicit part of the AMERICAN Empire. Itself part of the Global Plutocratic Conspiracy.

There is many times more cheating on taxes by global corporations on taxes in the EU than the entire EU budget. The economic ruination of southern Europe was greatly driven by banks and associated corruption (including British banks). The best EU politician right now is probaly Mateo Renzi, the Italian PM. Merkel admitted one million refugees… and France admitted 62 (sixty-two) refugees. Germany has another problem: demographic collapse (something also affecting England, although hidden by massive immigration).

Nicely said.
Do you have any numbers how much money is held in tax havens?
In his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations Gabriel Zucman makes estimates to about $7.6 trillion. By the way, the total public debt of Greece is about $350 billion.
He himself acknowledges that his estimates are on the low side, for example a certain James Henry found between $21 and $32 trillion in offshore wealth.

Thanks. Even “The Economist” has admitted, a few years back, that tax havens money is above 22 Trillions. Moreover Dark Money, Dark Pools, and the like is now more than 50% of trading. As recently as ten years ago, it was negligible, and passed 11% less than 5 years ago.
The remedy is a world wide registry of property (The Roman “CADASTRUM”)

Shouldn’t this distinction go to The City and its spider web of its ‘Crown dependencies’ (Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel) and ‘British Overseas Territories’ like Turks and Caicos and British Virgin Islands?

No. The USA is the world’s largest tax haven, by a long shot. UK, and its “Crown” BS is only second. London is the world’s plutocratic capital, though, and number one financial center. Hopefully it will Brexit itself to hell, and Franco-Germania will cut it down to size.

Another problem is that the EU is only part of European Institutions. Will England pull out of all of them? Of course not. Lawsuits are going to happen all over. One million Brit in France will have to ask French citizenship. I hope they get it right away, burning Marine Le Pen at the stake in effigy, if need be!

Meanwhile, the US empire is taking command:
From the WSJ, today, now:“The Italian government last month quietly began allowing armed American drones to fly out of an air base in Italy for military operations against Islamic State in Libya and across North Africa — a breakthrough for Washington after more than a year of negotiations, U.S. officials said.
But Rome’s green light came with a caveat that underscores the challenges the U.S. faces as it attempts to win commitments from allies in the fight against the extremist group: The Italians granted permission for the drones to be used only defensively, to protect U.S. special-operations forces in Libya, the officials said.
U.S. officials are still attempting to persuade the Italian government to allow the drones, based at Naval Air Station Sigonella on the island of Sicily since 2011, to be used for offensive operations like one the U.S. conducted Friday against a training camp near the border town of Sabratha, Libya, targeting a senior Islamic State operative and dozens more militants.”

Norway and Switzerland are in Schengen (except for Spitsbergen!). But neither country is in the European Union. However, they both pay contributions to the EU, which are about as high as if they were full EU members. Switzerland has more than 600 treaties with the EU, and is desperate to renegotiate with the EU (which is distracted by Brexit).

Franco-Germania and its satellites, including Spain and Italy is a superpower, and the Pound is at its lowest in seven years relative to the dollar. The EURO bond market is made in London! (How long is it going to stay there, after Brexit?)

London, at this point is Europe’s, and the world’s financial capital. Many banks have announced they will move out with Brexit.

Is Brexit poorly named? Should not it be Englxit? Yes, pretty ugly. A reminder: AIRBUS wings are made at Hawarden in Flintshire, Wales. Airbus, the world’s number one aircraft manufacturer, makes several planes, each day. Wales will leave, like Northern Ireland.

On the funny side of things, the English submarine nuclear fleet has preliminary plans to flee to Brest, France, after Scotland votes for independence and admission to the EU…

That Brussels is bad, no doubt. So is Westminster. Fix it, don’t flee like scared rabbits…